May 23
Sage Gorilla is a long-time fan of Martha Beck, life-coach extraordinaire. This article on the O Magazine website is even more insightful than usual. Enjoy!
http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Martha-Becks-Cure-for-Self-Consciousness/1
Aug 16
Here’s something Sage Gorilla picked up at an AMA course on Time Management: ‘Urgent’ does NOT equal ‘valid.’
In other words, someone else’s perception that something is urgent does not necessarily mean that the issue is a valid issue or that it deserves to be treated urgently by you.
So what do you do when someone steps to you with their hair on fire and their eyes all google-y?
Be the Devil’s Advocate:
Instead of immediately buying into the perceived urgency of a situation or request, try asking a few of these questions to investigate the real level of urgency.
- What would happen if we didn’t tackle this urgent issue until four hours from now? Or by the end of the week? Or never?
- Is tackling this issue now worth the loss of productivity on the work we’ll have to set aside while we react?
- Does solving this ‘em-URGENT-cy’ support the company’s (or your own) goals?
- Am I the right and best person to help with this issue? Or does it make sense to refer the ablaze person to someone else better qualified (or more directly responsible) for immediate assistance?
Sometimes asking a few simple questions can bring some much needed perspective for both you and the burning person standing in front of you. And it could allow you to continue to focus on the previously scheduled task that word have otherwise been put on hold.
Of course there are always real emergencies that take us away from the work at hand for legitimate reasons. But what percentage of your em-URGENT-cy interruptions do you think are really urgent?
Why not treat everything as an em-URGENT-cy? Because we have to plan for Big Rocks…
Steven R. Covey has a great metaphor about how we should fill our time. It references a large, finitely-sized bucket that represents the amount of time we have to do everything we want to do. And then it describes how when we add all of our ‘big rocks’, the bucket may appear to be full…until we discover that there is room between the big rocks for pebbles. And that beyond the pebbles, there is room for sand. And just when we think the sand took up all the remaining space in the bucket, water can be poured in.
The Obvious Lesson: The more obvious lesson is that we always have more time than we think we do.
The Less Obvious Lesson: The second lesson in Covey’s metaphor speaks to how hard it would be to fit all the big rocks into the bucket if we put the pebbles, the sand and the water in first. The idea is that if we don’t plan carefully for the big stuff, all the more urgent, the smaller and even the easier tasks will have become such a distraction that there won’t be enough time or energy left to put in the big, important rocks into our bucket.
I know. It’s hard to face the fact that we could have been managing our time better all along. But it’s never too late to have a happy childhood. And it’s never too late to take charge of your time.
Check back with us soon for our next installment of ‘Got time? Actually, you do’ where we’ll address using and not using technology to help us reclaim the clock.
Jul 22
Let me guess. You’re being asked to do more in less time. You’re being asked to do everything better and faster. You may be sitting there harried with your eyes glazed over thinking, ‘It’s just not possible.’
But Sage Gorilla knows it is possible. And the more you manage your time at work, the shorter your work day can be. And the shorter your work day is, the more time you have to spend doing the things you love.
A lot of nice folks like you think that they don’t have control over their time. But while we need to accept that time is a finite resource – yes, Virginia, there are only 24 hours in each day – we do have a lot more control over how we spend our time than we’re willing to admit.
Some of the best minds devoted to the skill of Time Management have some wonderful advice for people like us who are struggling to take back control. I’ve included a few tips here to get you started doing more in less time.
Interruptions:
How good are you really at not allowing yourself to be interrupted? There are lots of opportunities in this area that we could take advantage of to recoup quite a bit of our work time and therefore shorten our work day. Think back and identify two or three times in the past week where you allowed an interruption for fear of offending the interrupter. And here are some diplomatic ways to deflect an interruption:
- Show Them the Door: Instead of sitting down and listening to the interrupter, stand up in your cubicle or walk them to the door of your office. And then politely ask if they can stop by again at some specific other time to discuss. If the topic sounds unrelated to work and if you’re interested in hearing their anecdote, ask if they want to go to lunch or out for an after-work drink sometime soon to discuss.
- Don’t Stoop: Decline to participate in office gossip. It’s amazing how much of a time suck such an ugly activity can be! Politely excuse yourself from any conversation that goes in the gossip direction. Use work as an excuse – it’s what you’re paid to be there for, isn’t it?
- Ditch the Sarcasm: Using jokes or sarcasm to keep things interesting can cause things to get off track and waste a lot of time. Be friendly but don’t distract with an overabundance of humor.
- Lock it: Close your door and be clear with colleagues about what it means to have your door closed. If you work in a cubicle, put caution tape across the entrance or put on a pair of headphones to communicate that you’re heads-down on something important and don’t want to be interrupted. Be sure to tell people ahead of time what the caution tape/closed door/headphones mean. And if they ever do interrupt, use the incident to help them learn what are and are not good reasons to disturb your work time.
- Block It: Block out time on your calendar to tackle big, heavy-thinking work. To be even more effective log out of IM, set your phone to Do Not Disturb and turn off your email notifications during the work time. Everyone and every hot issue will still be there when the work time comes to an end – and if there really is an emergency, someone can always use a fire axe to bust through your door (or the caution tape or your headphones).
EmURGENTcies
Here’s something I picked up at an AMA course on Time Management: Urgent does NOT equal valid. In other words, someone else’s perception that something is urgent does not necessarily mean that the issue is a valid issue or that it deserves to be treated urgently by you.
Suggestion: Instead of immediately buying into the perceived urgency of a situation or request, try asking a few questions that investigate the real level of urgency.
- What would happen if we didn’t tackle this urgent issue until four hours from now? Or by the end of the week? Or never?
- Is tackling this issue now worth the loss of productivity on the work we’ll have to set aside while we react?
- Does solving this ‘em-urgent-cy’ support the company’s (or your own) goals?’
- Am I the right and best person to help with this issue?
Sometimes asking a few simple questions can bring some much needed perspective. And allow you to continue to focus on the more important task that word have otherwise been put on hold.
Plan for Big Rocks
Steven R. Covey has a great metaphor about how we should fill our time. It references a large bucket that represents the amount of time we have to do everything we want to do. And then it describes how when we add all of our ‘big rocks’, the bucket may appear to be full…until we discover that there is room between the big rocks for pebbles. And that beyond the pebbles, there is room for sand. And just when we think the sand took up all the remaining space in the bucket, water can be poured in.
The Lesson: The more obvious lesson is that we always have more time than we think we do. The less obvious lesson revolves around how hard it would be to put all the big rocks into the bucket if we put the pebbles, the sand and the water in first? The idea is that if we don’t plan carefully for the big stuff, all the smaller, easier tasks will have become such a distraction that there won’t be enough room left to put in the big, important rocks into our bucket.
Accept It.
I know. It’s hard to face the fact that we could have been managing our time better all along. But it’s never too late to have a happy childhood. And it’s never to late to take charge of time.